Taking pictures in July (Boulder, Longmont: rental homes, movers, credit)

[qfrost]

Well, we'll be there soon for a look around. One last question, any good areas of Arvada to be seen / considered? Thanks!

[WhereTheSidewalkEnds]

Enjoy yourself and have a safe trip. We look forward to seeing your pictures.

The greenbelt I live next to here in Longmont might make for some good pictures. In the evenings we almost always see foxes, a crane, ducks, etc. If you start at Willow Farm Park and head west (you have to cut through an old neighborhood but signs tell you how) you'll end up on a path by a creek heading west towards the mountains.

And Longmont's 7West Pizzeria just opened up the first rooftop restaurant in Longmont - I haven't been there since they did that this past week, but we have eaten there and it's good. It's on Main Street.

[BoulderBarHop]

Great photos at Chautauqua in Boulder. Get brunch there, too.

And Lyons, just north of Boulder is a worthwhile destination for great rock formations and also good music if you are in town later.

Ken

[qfrost]

We're just finishing our vacation here, last day in Colorado until next time. I'll write more later - Louisville wound up being our favorite location - with Bradburn also in the running. Anyone know what the rental market is like for Louisville? We're also toying with buying a rental property (small house) there. I'll do a big write up and pictures once we get back to L.A. ( )

[Katarina Witt]

Glad you liked Louisville. We've been there (here) since 1982. Great place to raise a family. I don't really know the rental market.

[qfrost]

Well, it certainly was an eventful trip - thanks to everyone here who offered suggestions on what to see and where to go! As it was bound to happen, we ran out of time to see everything on our list. We did not get to Longmont, and spent very little time in outlying Boulder proper. Our hotel and base of operations was in Westminster, and we became very familiar with hwy 36 as we zipped to and fro.

Two notes of frustration for those using the roads - our GPS has this really annoying 'gap' in the digitized maps of the area, causing us to twice miss the turn on 96th into Louisville, and instead putting us in the middle of nowhere late at night on the tollway that leads to an area without streets, houses, etc., where the GPS is completely lost. Important to know! The second is, 'Interlocken Loop, Interlocken Drive, Interlocken Blvd, Interlocken Parkway, Interlocken Crescent' all in the same area of Broomfield. Anyone think that maybe some different names might be a bit less confusing? So those two items tripped us 'tourists' up a bit.

It will take me a week or two to organize the photos, but I'll post the link on this thread when I'm done.

So now about what we saw. Boy, were we wrong on our impression from the last hurried, early evening dash through the area 6 months ago! Some general notes - everywhere we traveled - Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, Westminster and Boulder - was really lush and green. So I think we've now seen the area at the two extremes (winter, summer, dry, wet). There were enough trees for us, in all towns we looked. That was a concern we needn't have worried about. Another general observation we found - you have access to shopping and other more 'urban' stores - like large movie theatres, book stores, and large malls - from pretty much anywhere we traveled. The Flat Irons Mall was fantastic, especially that outdoor sitting area between the Borders and the movie theatre - in view of my two favorite pastimes.

Another note for us - the towns tended to flow together, being what we considered a very short hop from one to another. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you where Westminster ended and Broomfield began, without having a map handy. The same with Louisville and Layfayette, though there is a difference in the 'feel' between those two.

We visited Bradburn village and spent a great deal of time looking at the homes there - and there is a great choice of moderate priced (mid 300K), large homes with the built-in community and pool. I encourage anyone looking for a home in the general area to check them out.

But ultimately we fell in love with Louisville, and specifically the area around downtown. We also discovered that we, personally, like a little eclectic-ness in our neighborhood, which is why we ultimately decided Bradburn isn't higher on our list. Since we spent the most time in Louisville, I'll offer another observation about the town. There are four distinct areas we saw - 1) downtown, which is about a 6 block area of walkable homes, a mix of renovated and run-down homes on generally small lots, 2) an expensive, high end group of subdivisions just to the West where the homes run up close to a million, 3) another group of subdivisions, one of which included a golf course to the Southwest, and 4) several surrounding areas from downtown that included a lot of 'generic' subdivisions - the kind of homes that could exist anywhere, garages taking up most of the curb appeal, most with a good amount of trees and larger lots than downtown. We loved the parks, and our daughter had a great time at the Memory Square playground. Saw the newer one with the water park elements, but didn't have time to use it.

Overall, most of the cities we saw had a lot of subdivisions and suburbia, but right now they tend to blur in distinction in my mind - I'll have to look at the photos for more specifics. All the cities had nice views of the Flatirons. We had great weather - with two different storms coming in while we were there - I forgot how great that smell of incoming rain is! And awesome to have thunder and lightning - I was in heaven. We spent the last day up in Breck, so we missed the tornado watch by half a day . But a good trip, all in all.

A few final notes about Boulder - we did have our realtor show us a town home in Holiday, on the North end of Boulder (after taking us through gorgeous farmland and horse country on Valmont Rd).
Holiday is right next to a trailer park, a junkyard and an army depot. We saw a small, overpriced town home where the two young couples had forgot to cancel the showing (they were quick to spray air fresheners and wave away a very specific smoke). The location wasn't as good for children as it would be for a young couple without kids - that would be a much better fit from what we saw.

We did stop by a cycling coffee shop nearby, and despite the fact I get along pretty much with everyone, I did pick up on a certain negative attitude, or vibe, whatever you want to call it - everyone we had seen and talked to while on our trip had been fantastic, open and very friendly. But in NoBo it felt...snooty? I don't know, but I did notice the difference pretty quickly.

We also drove through an area of Boulder to the south, on and around Ithaca. The homes were that generic suburbs type, and we saw one at around 400K. Nothing special, and I couldn't see a lot of children in the neighborhood. But it is cool how close the mountains are at that point.

One other quick item - it seemed everywhere we looked there was a bike trail. Pretty sweet. More later!

[LostinColorado]

q - it is absolutely great reading about your experience visiting the area.. the neighborhoods you investigated are mostly the same ones we have been looking at. i can't wait to see what pics you've got. i've wondered if i'd feel the stereotypical vibe in the Boulder area... i'm looking forward to being able to compare my experience with yours and others'.......

[Katarina Witt]

qfrost:

I think you captured the essence of the NW area very well in your post. It's always nice to "see ourselves as others see us".

[qfrost]

Thank you, Katiana. I wish it were a longer stay. Everyone gave us such great places to see, we just couldn't reasonably get to them all this time around.

[qfrost]

Okay, as promised, here are the photos on a quick website. Phew! I wish I had more, but I had to drive most of the time. Let's see if this works:

http://coloradoaroundboulder.shutterfly.com/